Disney remakes hope to shed light on social issues

Same stories, different faces: The recent casting for the upcoming Disney films set to hit the big screen has sparked media conversation over race and gender stereotypes.

For the past few years, Disney’s hit childhood movies have made their way into theaters as live-action remakes of the animated originals, such as “Cinderella” and “Alice in Wonderland.”

One of these is Sony’s remake of the 1998 film “Mulan,” set to release in 2018. The movie will feature a mostly Chinese cast with the screenplay shot in China, a first for the timeless movie.

Unlike Sony’s “Mulan,” Disney’s live-action remake that is also set to release in 2018 is rumored to feature a white protagonist and be less historically accurate to Chinese culture, according to Moviepilot.com. The two movies will be very different. Sony’s will focus on more battle-oriented sceneplay while Disney’s will mainly continue on the original’s storyline.

In Disney’s original movie, more than half of the characters were played by white actors. While this has been a common trend in the Hollywood industry, with over 73 percent of white actors according to PBS, Sony is looking to break this trend.

In an interview with “The Disney Movie Review,” Sony writers Lauren Hynek and Elizabeth Martin said that, since today’s values are more accepting than those of the past, it is important that society can adapt movies to these changing values and still make them enjoyable.

Hynek and Martin attribute part of their inspiration to Bill Condon’s remake of “Beauty and the Beast,” set to release March 17, which people believe is giving the classic fairytale a more feminist angle.

The protagonist Belle, played by Emma Watson, will have a more fine-tuned backstory. Belle will not be wearing a constraining 19th century-style corset, and instead of only being the daughter of the village inventor, she will also be an inventor herself.

“We created a backstory for her, which was that she had invented a washing machine, so instead of doing laundry, she could sit and use that time to read instead,” Watson told Entertainment.com in an interview on Nov. 2.

As well as following the original love story, the creators behind the “Beauty and the Beast” revival are hoping to bring more change and equality to the Hollywood community through a different portrayal of Belle. Similarly, social issues were taken on in the 2016 live-action release of “The Jungle Book,” which explored race equality.

Whereas in the original animated 1967 release all characters were voiced by white actors, this recent remake has included a much more racially diverse cast.

Since the movie is depicted in the jungles of India, for the film’s two human roles, director Jon Favreau cast Indian American actors Neel Sethi and Ritesh Rajan to play protagonist Mowgli and Mowgli’s father. Additionally, Indian-Canadian comedian Russell Peters voiced Rocky the Rhino and Ben Kingsley, who is half-Indian, voiced Bagheera the Panther.  

These changes in casting have received global acclaim. Christopher Orr of the Atlantic Newspaper wrote in a review that “‘The Jungle Book’ is a genuinely wonderful film, an almost overwhelming onrush of thrills, wit and tenderness.”

On the critical movie review site “Rotten Tomatoes,” “The Jungle Book” boasts 95 percent while the original animated movie only stands at 86 percent. It seems that the combination of a modern twist, live-action acting and the shift of race roles has truly helped revive the movie in a positive way.

Although 70 percent of lead roles in Hollywood films are still played by white actors today, this racial imbalance is on its gradual way to becoming a thing of the past. By avoiding cultural misportrayal from the point of casting, directors ensure that remakes of childhood favorites don’t haunt the next generation with cultural appropriation.